UNESCO ICT Prize honours Finland, Brazil projects using AI to strengthen critical thinking

Generation AI focuses on helping students understand, question and critically engage with AI itself, while Redação Paraná demonstrates how AI-assisted feedback can be integrated into large-scale public education without removing teachers from the learning process.

Together, the projects demonstrate two important dimensions of responsible AI use in education: developing the capacity to understand and critically evaluate AI, while also learning to use it purposefully as part of the learning process.

That distinction is becoming increasingly important as generative AI becomes more capable of producing essays, explanations, analyses and other forms of content.

The educational challenge is therefore shifting from simply teaching students how to use AI to ensuring they can evaluate its outputs, develop their own ideas, make informed judgements and remain active participants in the learning process.

Lessons for Africa

The UNESCO recognition carries particular relevance for education systems across Africa, where policymakers and schools are increasingly exploring AI amid persistent challenges around teacher shortages, learning outcomes, digital access and educational inequality.

AI could help expand access to learning resources, support teachers, personalise learning and improve educational content. But unequal access to devices and connectivity, limited teacher preparation and weak digital infrastructure could also reinforce existing inequalities.

The experiences of Finland and Paraná suggest that effective AI adoption requires more than technology. Pedagogy, teacher capacity and learner agency must remain central to implementation.

For African policymakers and education leaders, the question is therefore not simply whether schools should adopt AI, but how AI can be deployed without weakening the thinking, creativity and judgement that education is meant to develop.

The 2026 UNESCO ICT Prize offers two practical examples of approaches seeking to answer that question.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in classrooms, the strongest models may ultimately be those that use technology not to make students think less, but to help them question more, create more and think more deeply.